The Humanity of Animals and the Animality of Humans

That’s me in the picture. I’ll be 75 years old on July 26, 2019 (Mick will be 76) and the Cuban Revolution will be 66 – 66 years since the seminal battle on July 26 when Castro’s rebels attached a military barracks. 60 years since seizing power in 1959. Cuba is arguably the most purely socialist society – and most successfully so – in the world. We need to embrace this fact. Free excellent health care, 100% literacy, great schools, international solidarity, cooperative spirit, exquisite cars, terrific beer, delicious ice cream, music, dance, and visual arts to die for. Indomitable […]

Happy Mayday! I proposed in my previous blog post [http://henryhitz.com/happy-earth-day/ ] that catastrophic climate change could not be stopped under capitalism, that only the central planning that comes with socialism could prevent the catastrophe. But what is socialism? The word has been so dragged through the holocaust and the gulag that one is tempted to drop it and come up with a better term. But Bernie Sanders has done us the great favor of embracing the term. I know there are people who wish he wouldn’t use it, especially since his core proposals are not really socialist in the sense […]

Newsflash: Climate change is not caused by humans. It’s caused by capitalism. The dynamic of capitalism requires growth in production every year, at least 2 or 3%. It’s capitalism that drives the fossil fuels industry, the corporate farming industry, the auto industry, the steel industry, the coal industry and all the industries which spew CO2 into the air at unsustainable levels and dump industrial waste poisoning our oceans, lakes, and streams. Can climate collapse be stopped without ending capitalism? Personally, I doubt it. Bringing bags to the market and recycling are worthy endeavors, but most people realize they’re not nearly […]

The united front. I don’t think it’s possible to understand Bernie’s strategy for his “revolution” without understanding the concept of the united front. Lenin developed the strategy in leading the Russian Revolution, but as a strategy, it has little to do with communist ideology. It’s about how you win. In pursuing the strategy, we unite with everyone who agrees with a certain set of principles, points of unity. Often we unite with people and groups with which we have profound disagreements. The way we handle these disagreements determines whether we will be successful or not. “Struggle with, struggle against” is […]

Are you feeling the bern yet? I am. And I think others are opening up to the possibility that he could win this thing. Can we take a second to imagine what that might really be like? Bernie Sanders, Socialist, sworn in as POTUS on January 20, 2021. Breathe. This could happen. Exactly what would happen from day one on all our ambitious policy goals, I can’t say. But more importantly, I sense the whole country relaxing a into smile, from Bangor to San Diego, from Anchorage to Honolulu, Miami to San Juan. The nightmare is over, and not just […]

Last week I promised to examine the various proposals that the current crop of Democratic presidential candidates are proposing. Cory Booker is proposing “baby bonds,” a savings account for every newborn, with preference to those in poverty. This would amount to $1000 for each child, to be added to by “as much as” $2000 each year until the age of 18. Now it’s true that black families are disproportionately below the poverty line, but if black families aren’t singled out racially, it isn’t reparations, it’s just another anti-poverty program, maybe even a good one, but call it what it is. […]

Reparations for the enslavement and subsequent discrimination against black people has been the most important issue facing U. S. society at least since 1865, if not 1619. It is a very good thing that the issue has been placed on 2020 presidential campaign agenda by Harris, Warren, and Booker, no matter what other disagreements we may have with them. [I’m still supporting Bernie, even though he has waffled on this issue – I’m hopeful his position will evolve.] Next week I’ll examine all their proposals, but my first impression is that all of them hesitate on the issue of race, […]

Our democracy – such as it is or ever was – is in trouble. Nationally, it’s warped by its remnants of slavery and Jim Crow. When two presidents over 16 years are elected despite their loss of the popular vote, you might think it’s time for something new. Let’s rebuild democracy from the other end, from the bottom up. Start with the schools. Perhaps if democracy were not only taught but practiced in the schools, it might be growing rather than shrinking. What would a democratic school look like? As far as the younger children go, it would maximize choice. […]

“At the very same time that America refused to give the Negro any land. Through an act of Congress, our government was giving away millions of acres of land in the West and the mid-West, which meant it was willing to under girth its peasants from Europe with an economic floor. But not only did they give the land, they built land grant colleges with government money to teach them how to farm. Not only that, they provided country agents to further their expertise in farming. Not only that, they provided low interest rates in order that they could mechanize […]

How about a statewide teachers strike in California? I’m sure many people are working on this. LA is going on strike Monday (1/14/19) and Oakland is “Strike Ready” on the verge. And let’s include a parent boycott at the same time. Even if it was only for one day, it could make the legislature move. I spent 45 years in the schools first as a teacher then as a parent organizer. I am so sick of this battle over money. It’s been 40 f-ing years since Prop. 13, we have a Democratic supermajority, and a 9 billion dollar surplus in […]

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Squirrels in the Wall

New book coming October 2019

Squirrels in the Wall―a novel told in stories by a collection of interspecies voices―presents a unique and darkly hilarious blend of human and animal perspectives in a single setting on a Wisconsin lake. The stories provide a kaleidoscope of heartbreak among both human and animal characters as they confront abuse and death.

“They call me Herziger, but my real name is Woof,” one of the stories opens. “They call me a dachshund, but in reality, I am just a dog. I live with my mother among a pack of wild humans in a big house on a lake.” In the second story, “Squirrels in the Wall,” Herzie’s “human,” Barney Blatz, experiences a fire in that house when he is just four. The stories follow Barney from infancy to death, tracing the epic, ongoing conflict between him and Father―a bumbling tyrant guilty of shocking abuse but also capable of poignant redemption.

On this rollicking journey, we meet a suicidal toad, a cat, two mice, a bee, grandfather’s ghost, and a turtle who possesses Barney in a climactic tale of environmental activism gone awry. Other stories reflect the points of view of Barney’s mother, sister, and older brother; together, they construct a collage of spectacular family dysfunction ― and of healing love.

Henry Hitz laces this riveting, thought provoking journey, Squirrels in the Wall, with dollops of juicy humor. Dogs, bees, a fox, humans, turtles, and other assorted critters–both dead and alive–all ponder, question, and wonder about that line blurring life and death. “Life is death’s dream?” Under the masterful hand of Mr. Hitz, we are in for a thoroughly enjoyable and informative read.

–Francine Thomas Howard, author of two Amazon bestsellers: Page from a Tennessee Journal, and The Duke of Union County

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White Knight

In 1977, a fireman named Dan White saved a woman and her babies from a fire in the Geneva Towers apartments in San Francisco. It is this scene which opens White Knight, the story of one witness to that fire, Barney Blatz, and his entanglement with the political and personal catastrophe which followed. With the November, 1978 Jonestown Massacre of 912 people and, three days later, White’s murder of Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk, the city and Barney unraveled. “There’s a bumper sticker that reads ‘Time is nature’s way of keeping everything from happening at once,’ but this November, it isn’t working.”

A powerful tale set in San Francisco during the turbulent late ‘70s. Hitz makes you feel that you were there, and shows how we came to grasp that ‘the personal is political’ and, alas, vice versa. An elegant debut novel.